Dentists, Doctors and Poetry of course

Evening folks. This week I have had one dentist appointment, one doctor’s appointment and have been to one poetry reading.

My dentist appointment was on Monday, which meant I spent the morning worrying about the appointment and then the afternoon recovering from it. I have a cavity apparently so I have to go and get a filling next Tuesday. Cue much moaning from me – I’m terrified of dentists and haven’t been since 2008, so I guess I only have myself to blame (I’ll say it before anyone else does)

Then Tuesday I went up to the Wordsworth Trust to hear Tishani Doshi and Priscila Uppal. It was a really, really good reading. I already had Tishani’s book after hearing her read at Ledbury Poetry Festival last year but I knew nothing about Priscila Uppal but she is now one of my Favorite Poets. There is a poem in her book ‘Successful Tragedies’ called ‘In Your Sickness’ which I’ve copied out and am carrying with me – I don’t do that very often, but I keep coming back to it, reading it out loud, reading it to myself. I don’t know if it’s online or not. So that was a very successful poetry reading – to find a new poet that I love – new to me, not new to poetry – she is a very big Canadian Poet. Anyway, here are the first couple of lines of that poem and if they don’t make you want to go and spend a tenner on the book I don’t know what will…

‘It is your body, soft as an old bed,
the fleshy pillows of your fever
that make me want to deliver you like an old letter
back to a first love…’

And then on Wednesday I went with one of my GCSE pupils to an extra rehearsal to practise his ensemble piece – he has to play a solo with a band. I got back after 9pm on that night – so no poetry that day. Barrow Steelworks Band had kindly agreed to let my pupil come and have an extra practice with them before he records it with the junior band on Monday – I played my trumpet for the first time in a long time – by the way, Barrow Steelworks are recruiting for players, so if anyone used to play a brass instrument and feels the urge to do so again, or has always wanted to play an instrument…get in touch and I’ll put you in touch with the conductor.

And today I went to the doctors and found out I have to have a minor operation to remove a lump from my skull. It’s a perfectly harmless lump, apparently, apart from the fact it’s very sore at the minute – it’s such a minor operation that they can do it at the doctors surgery. The doctor was completely puzzled when I appeared worried about this – but I’ve not even broken anything before and I don’t like pain. It’s actually a benign cyst, but that sounds more horrible than the vague word ‘lump’. So the dramatic part of my personality, which lets face it, makes up 90% of my psychological makeup is feeling like I’m physically falling apart, getting old, etc etc. The doctor said ‘It’s no more serious than going to the dentist’ which was an unfortunate analogy in my case. The best thing the doctor said though, and this is the real reason I’m writing about something fairly personal on a blog which anyone can read, was the line ‘At least you’ll get a day off work. You don’t want to bleed on any of your pupils’.

Is it advisable to rant about lumps and fillings on a blog and sandwich a poetry reading between the two? I don’t know.

And for those who are dying for updates about the car situation – still no new car yet. I’m fluctuating between buying a £500 car from a random, or going wild and buying a brand new one on a finance plan…. the middle ground of a ‘good’ second hand car has not worked too well for me with the last couple of cars….

To finish with poetry – I have just submitted to a poetry magazine and a competition tonight. Which of course, isn’t really poetry – it is the fluff and feathers around poetry, but it has cleared out my stock of poems which means my mind feels clear and there is space for some new poems to fly in….